YWCA. Women Vow to Lead Change in Response to AIDS. 02/08/07

Vowing that “we can lead the change we wish to see in the world”, participants at the World YWCA’s International Women’s Summit on HIV and AIDS concluded their meeting with a call to action demanding individual and collective responsibility.

“This call to action is not just words on paper” Dr Musimbi Kanyoro, General Secretary of the World YWCA told press at the Kenyatta International Conference Center. “ It is a personal pledge each of us at this summit is making in our hearts and with our hands. And as the World YWCA, which is a movement of 25 million women worldwide, we know that these pledges will multiply. Where one woman acts, more will be inspired, more will be committed, more will take action until there is no power that can stop us. “

Actress Naomi Watts,UNAIDS special representative, speaking in a specially prepared video, said, ‘Leadership is critical and we need more of it and more people at all levels” to achieve universal access to HIV prevention, care and treatment by 2010. Affirming the “courageous leadership” of women that has already been demonstrated in the Summit, she concluded, “ while the road ahead is tough, I do firmly believe that if we push the envelope, if we work together, and we stand strong, we can and we will turn the tide of AIDS.”

The “Nairobi 2007 Call to Action” affirms that recognition of the human rights of women and girls is essential for “an effective response to the global AIDS pandemic”. Through the course of the day, participants added their signature as a personal pledge of action on HIV and AIDS.

The text was officially presented in the closing session by Alice Welbourn, from the International Community of Women Living with HIV and AIDS, with responses by leaders actively responding to the AIDS pandemic:

The Call to Action identifies specific strategies under ten “critical actions for change” that can be implemented through individuals, families, faith groups and communities “as part of the global women’s movement”.

1. Developing the leadership of women and girls to respond to HIV and AIDS
2. Ensuring the meaningful involvement of women infected and affected by HIV in relevant decision making,
3. Promoting gender equality and the human rights of women and girls
4. Ensuring the physical, sexual and psychological safety and security of women and girls
5. Promoting the sexual and reproductive health and rights of all women and girls
6. Ensuring education, economic security and access to resources for women and girls including the right to own and inherit property
7. Expanding access to services for women infected and affected by HIV, including safe testing, care, treatment and support
8. Promoting the human rights of young women and children by revising AIDS strategies to respond to the reality of their lives
9. Advocating for increased resources to support the capacity of women to lead change on HIV and AIDS
10. Promoting the participation, empowerment and leadership of women at all levels of society

Women Want a Bigger Piece of the Funding Pie 10/07/07

NAIROBI, 10 July 2007 (PlusNews) - After burning the midnight oil for many weeks while preparing a US$50 million gender-based project proposal to lay before the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria, Swazi activists found that it had vanished from their country's grant application. They were dumbfounded.

"No one would tell us who had taken it out, but someone told us that women's issues are not a priority for the country," said Siphiwe Hlophe, of the non-governmental organisation (NGO), Positive Living, which assists people living with HIV.
Until last year women were considered legal minors in the tiny, impoverished southern African kingdom of Swaziland, where 33 percent of the population are infected with HIV - the world's highest rate.

Hlophe was speaking at the first International Conference on Women and AIDS, which ended in Nairobi, Kenya, on 7 July. One of the key themes was increasing resources for women, because the fight against AIDS is intertwined with the fight for women's rights: in most countries more women than men are infected with HIV, and studies have shown that gender inequality is a major contributing factor in the spread of the virus.

A bumpy road
Funding for promoting women's rights is hard to come by, and the Global Fund is an example. According to the Association for Women´s Rights in Development (AWID), it was second among the top 20 donors to women's organisations in sub-Saharan Africa in 2005.

The Fund was set up in 2002 and has 136 member countries; to date it has raised US$7 billion and given 400 grants. This year it disbursed about $US1 billion for new proposals, in addition to US$2 billion for existing projects.

Developing countries apply for grants once a year through their Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM), which receives proposals from all a country's AIDS actors, and whose members are elected representatives of the public and private sectors, NGOs, academics, donors and people living with HIV. The CCM should be broadly representative of all sectors working in the field of HIV/AIDS. But this is where the problems start.

In Nigeria, the government handpicked CCM members "so it looked as any government agency", although activist pressure had changed that, said Rolake Odetoyinbo, project director of the Nigerian advocacy group, Positive Action for Treatment Access, which is based in the port city of Lagos.

"Go to the Global Fund website, find out who represents women at your CCM, call her and ask, 'sister, what are you doing for us?' Go the CCM meetings as observers - they won't pay your fare, they won't feed you, but you got to be there and watch what happens," she advised.

Clinical psychologist and HIV-positive activist Susan Paxton, of the Asia and Pacific Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, noted that in her region CCMs were male-dominated, and suggested that the civil society representatives to the CCM should include one man and one woman.

Another problem is the complexity of requirements for making proposals, which cover 150 pages and demand much detail. This may ensure accountability and professionalism, but it makes it very hard for small NGOs.

This year, the Women's Coalition of Zimbabwe, an umbrella organisation for women's rights groups, hired two consultants for a period of three months, yet their proposal didn't make it into the final funding round.

"It was a painful process and we are still in mourning, but it was worth it," said the coalition's Netsai Mushonga. Besides the experience gained by the organisation, the Zimbabwean CCM has agreed to include gender as a central theme in proposals for 2008.

At the end of a successful application there is a pot of money that will translate into services and programmes for vulnerable women and girls, such as reproductive health, income-generation, and more widespread promotion of rights.

"We need to get really smart to get what we want and master fund-raising skills. It may be boring, but needed to bring programmes to change women's lives," said Sisonke Msimang, coordinator of HIV and AIDS programmes at the Open Society of Southern Africa, a member of the International Soros Foundations Network that promotes democracy and social upliftment.

Shrinking resources for women

"Influencing funding is critical to a women's rights strategy and to shift the value systems," said Zawadi Nyong'o, AWID coordinator in Kenya. [www.awid.org]
Funding for women was shrinking, Nyong'o explained: money was shifting to governments and national budgets under the AIDS effectiveness policy to streamline donor procedure and aid delivery, reducing the flow of funds outside national budgets, as agreed by 90 countries in Paris in 2005.

Some of it was being redirected elsewhere under the agenda of the religious right, and the rest was becoming concentrated on large, well-established organisations, in what Nyong'o described as "a vicious cycle".

"Small NGOs stay small, the large get larger, and there are few in the middle," she said. An 2005 AWID survey of women's NGOs worldwide found that 37 percent have annual budgets under US$20,000.

About half the NGOs surveyed reported receiving less funding than five years ago, roughly one-quarter received more and one-quarter reported no change. Bigger organisations reported the largest growth in funding.

The future of funding for programmes related to women's rights lay in diversifying strategies and relying more on local resources, governments, the private sector and communities, said Bisi Adeleye Fayemi, Executive Director of the African Women's Development Fund.

It would be an uphill struggle, she warned. "The reason we are not getting enough funding is that we are trying to dismantle a system that has been in place for millenniums: patriarchy."

Kenya: Leadership Pledge in War On AIDS. 09/07/07

The women's conference on HIV and Aids came to a close with calls for action and improved individual and collective responsibility in tackling the pandemic.

About 2,000 delegates from 95 nationalities attended the international women's summit on HIV and Aids, ending their talks with a promise to lead the change in response to the disease.

The women, who were meeting at Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC), came up with the Nairobi Call to Action, a 10-point action plan aimed at developing leadership of women and girls to respond to HIV and Aids.

The Nairobi 2007 Call to Action affirms that the recognition of the rights of women and girls was essential for an effective response to the global Aids problem.

Decision making

It identifies specific strategies for change that can be implemented through individuals, families, faith groups and communities as part of the global women's movement.

The 10 areas of action are ensuring meaningful involvement of women in relevant decision making and promoting gender equality and the human rights of women and girls; ensure their physical, sexual and psychological safety and security.

Others are to promote their sexual and reproductive health and rights, ensure their education, economic security and access to resources, including the right to own and inherit property.

They concluded with the statement: "We can lead the change we wish to see in the world."

Speaking earlier, South Africa's deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka urged African leaders to urgently find ways to stem poaching of health workers by developed nations.

The leader, who also chairs the country's national Aids control council, called for the strengthening of Africa's health systems saying their capacities were challenged.

And at a separate function, Ms Mlambo-Ngcuka urged African journalists to cover stories touching on the continent with a Pan-African context to correct the negative image portrayed by Western media.

According to her, African journalists had a duty to re-brand the continent by taking into consideration the positive social, political and economic development witnessed all over the continent.

During the launch of the East African Bureau of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), the deputy president took issue with foreign corresponds for portraying Africa as a continent that was always faced with war and famine.

The 11-day meeting was organised by the World Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) as part of the organisation's governing assembly meeting which meets every four years.

It was the second time in 36 years that the YWCA World Council was convening its meeting in Africa. The last conference was held in Ghana.

The meeting sought to mobilise urgent responses to rising HIV infection rates among women and girls in every region.

Dr Musimbi Kanyoro, the World YWCA general-secretary said the call to action was not just words on paper.

"It is a personal pledge each of us at this summit is making in our hearts and with our hands. Women are committing themselves to do something to win the war on Aids," she stated.

"Where one woman acts, more will be inspired and be committed. More will take action until there is no power that can stop us," she stated.

The women pledged to work towards expanding access to services for women infected and affected by HIV, including safe testing, treatment, support and to promote the human rights of young women and children.

They promised to promote the human rights of young women and children by revising Aids strategies to respond to the reality of their situations.

The meeting also pledged to advocate for increased resources to support the capacity of women to lead change on HIV and Aids and promote the participation, empowerment and leadership of women at all levels.

Their signatures

During the last day of the meeting yesterday, participants appended their signatures as a personal pledge of action on HIV and Aids. They also held a rally in support of women living with HIV and Aids.

President Kibaki opened the summit on Thursday in a ceremony attended by United Nations deputy secretary-general Dr Asha-Rose Migiro, World Health Organisation director-general Dr Margaret Chan and Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and Aids executive director Dr Peter Piot.

It was preceded by a one-day forum of about 500 HIV positive women.

Sexuality a Human Right for HIV Positive Women. 09/07/07

NAIROBI, 9 July (PLUSNEWS) - Abstinence or a sexually active life? The dilemma, faced daily by HIV-positive women around the world, was discussed by delegates attending the first global conference on women and AIDS, in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

Many campaigns have preached abstinence from sex as the best way to prevent the disease, inviting criticism from those who question the efficacy of the strategy. In the case of women with HIV, would abstinence be a desirable alternative? Most women interviewed by PlusNews said abstinence was a personal option, but none of them seemed to embrace it.

"We are sexual beings and we have the right to have relationships. Part of being healthy involves being sexually healthy," said Nigerian activist Rolake Odetoyinbo, of the non-governmental organisation (NGO), Positive Action for Treatment Action. "People with HIV must be at peace with their sexuality in order to protect themselves."

As a result of the rapidly expanding availability of antiretroviral treatment, people with HIV live with a new reality: their health improves and so does their sexual appetite.

"Did you know that antiretrovirals make you horny?" joked Lutanga Shaba, an HIV-positive woman and the director of The Women's Trust, an NGO in Zimbabwe. "It doesn't work to pretend that sex isn't happening."

Feminine sexuality and sexual desire are realities of life, but society finds it harder to accept when women living with the virus exercise these. One point of agreement at the meeting was that the sexuality of people with HIV should be viewed through the lens of human rights; that women with HIV, like other women, have the right to a healthy sex life.

Delegates noted that a subtle line separated privacy from the necessity of protecting oneself and one's partner from infection or re-infection. "To reveal one's condition should be done voluntarily - because the woman wants to - but not as an obligation," said an activist who did not want to be named.

One of the fears in relation to this issue is that other countries will follow the example of Namibia, which is considering legislation that would place the onus on an HIV-positive person to inform any sexual partner of their status, with a prison sentence imposed on anyone who infected another person.

Deborah Williams, of Trinidad and Tobago, a representative of the Caribbean Regional Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, emphasised the importance of revealing one's HIV status. "If a partner doesn't say he has HIV, then it is true violence against a woman. We have to lower the rates of transmission by being open, speaking of our condition for our protection; this has to be our promise," she said.

Shaba said the inequality of the sexes also put women at a disadvantage. "If an HIV-positive man discovers that his fiancée is positive, he is certain to abandon her. But if a man is positive, the wedding will certainly go on ... It is a question of gender."

Redefining the terms

Conference participants called for a more realistic approach to prevention than the current ABC strategy of Abstinence, Be faithful, and use Condoms.

"You can throw ABC in the trash, it doesn't work," said Shaba.

Peter Piot, executive director UNAIDS, was more cautious, pointing out that although many current prevention programmes were based in the realities of 20 years ago, many achievements had been accomplished.

"We have to be careful to not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Condoms continue to work, but they are not sufficient. Nothing reduced to a single buzzword works with HIV; it is always a combination of factors."

Women's HIV/AIDS Conference Delegates Develop Action Plan To Foster Women's, Girls' Leadership in Fight Against Disease. 09/07/07

Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report

Delegates on Saturday at the close of the first International Women's Summit on Women's Leadership and HIV and AIDS in Nairobi, Kenya, released a 10-point action plan that aims to foster leadership roles of women and girls in the fight against HIV/AIDS, the Nation/AllAfrica.com reports (Wafula, Nation/AllAfrica.com, 7/9).

The conference, organized by the World YWCA, was attended by more than 1,500 AIDS advocates, celebrities, community health workers, global leaders and policymakers. The summit aimed to address the impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls and examined issues such as violence against women, poverty and children's rights, and access to resources. The summit is co-convened by the International Community of Women Living With HIV/AIDS and had support from UNAIDS' Global Coalition on Women and AIDS and the United Nations Population Fund (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 7/6).

The plan, called Nairobi 2007 Call to Action, identifies strategies for change that can be implemented by communities, religious groups, families and individuals, the Nation/AllAfrica.com reports. The plan of action includes securing significant involvement of women in decision making processes; promoting equality and the human rights of girls and women; ensuring their sexual, physical and psychological safety and security; promoting their reproductive and sexual rights and health; and increasing their access to education, economic security and other resources, such as the right to own and inherit property (Nation/AllAfrica.com, 7/9).

According to South Africa Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, men also must become involved to effectively combat the disease. "There aren't enough men who are taking enough responsibility to go for tests and live responsibly, and that kind of (behavior) compromises the fight" against HIV/AIDS, Mlambo-Ngcuka said, adding that the "response to HIV will not be won if men do not come on board since they are equally affected or infected." In addition, empowering women is an effective HIV prevention method, Mlambo-Ngcuka said. "Addressing the economic status of women" will provide women with resources and choices so "they can get out [of] abusive relationships" and "acquire the support that they need," she said, adding, "The most important thing is [to] remove women from the bottom of the pyramid" (AFP/China Daily, 7/7).

Musimbi Kanyoro, World YWCA general secretary, said the call to action is a "pledge each of us at this summit is making in our hearts and with our hands. Women are committing themselves to do something to win the war on AIDS." She added, "Where one woman acts, more will be inspired and be committed. More will take action until there is no power that can stop us." Conference delegates also pledged to work toward increasing access to services among women living with and affected by HIV, including safe testing, treatment and support services and promoting the rights of young women and children (Nation/AllAfrica.com, 7/9).

Kenya: Empowering Women Key Step in Fight Against AIDS. 07/07/07

OPINION
7 July 2007
Elizabeth Mataka and Zeda Rosenberg
 More than 1,000 leaders from around the world came together in Nairobi this week to discuss issues related to HIV and Aids. While conferences on the pandemic are rather commonplace, this meeting was different.

This time, African women - doctors, activists, nurses, grandmothers, community leaders, and women living with HIV - took centre stage at the International Women's Health Summit.

It makes good sense that women are leading the fight against Aids. Some 60 per cent of Africans living with HIV are women. Among young people the situation is worse: More than 75 per cent of 15-24-year-olds living with HIV in Africa are women.

In Kenya, young women are five times as likely as young men to be HIV positive.

In Zambia, aids has reduced a woman's average life expectancy to 37 years. Across the continent, women are struggling to educate orphans, care for the sick, and feed their families under the weight of this epidemic.

Encouraging people to always use condoms and be faithful to one partner is important, but it is not enough. In fact, we know that in some cases marriage, or what a woman believes is a monogamous relationship, can actually increase a woman's risk of HIV.

A woman may not be able to convince her partner to use condoms - or she and her partner may want to have children, which they cannot do while abstaining or using condoms. And remaining faithful to her husband cannot protect a woman whose husband is not faithful to her.

To successfully defeat Aids we must do more to help women to protect themselves.

A vaccine to prevent HIV, once developed, could save millions of lives. Another promising tool is a microbicide, a vaginal gel, ring or tablet that women could use to prevent infection.

Advocates in Africa

Microbicides are not yet available, but researchers and advocates in Africa and around the world are working to develop them and carry out clinical trials to test if they are safe and effective in preventing HIV infection.

By putting protection from HIV into the hands of women, a microbicide would slow the spread of the virus and finally allow women to take control over their own health.

We must prioritise research on these promising preventive technologies. At the same time, we must do more with the tools that already exist.

The female condom should be affordable and accessible to women in Africa.

We must expand prevention of mother-to-child-transmission services so that every pregnant woman receives the care and treatment she needs.

Like nearly all of us, the women attending this week's summit have lost family members, workmates, and friends to this disease.

These women are on the frontlines every day - the doctor working long hours in the clinic, the grandmother who cares for her orphaned grandchildren, the community care worker visiting the homes of the sick, the woman living with HIV who had the courage to say so publicly, the sex worker who spends her days educating her peers at the taxi rank.

These women are the ones who have told us of the desperate need for female-initiated HIV prevention approaches. After all, their lives and the future of our families and countries depend on it.

Elizabeth Mataka is the United Nations Secretary General's Special Envoy for Aids in Africa. Dr Zeda Rosenberg is Chief Executive Officer of the International Partnership for Microbicide.

Kobia Calls for "Christ-Centred Approach" to HIV/AIDS, "With Love as its Language" 06/07/07

WCC

WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia has challenged his fellow men to join the efforts of women, especially grandmothers, in dealing with the immune deficiency pandemic. During a panel at the International Women’s Summit convened by the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) in partnership with the International Community of Women Living with HIV and AIDS (ICW) and other international organisations in Nairobi on 4-7 July, he declared that Christian doctrines should be "applied to edify life and not to condemn and judge."

After an appraisal of the considerable positive change reached during the last twenty years of ecumenical engagement with the issue, Kobia highlighted the necessity for religious men to "fully engage in the campaign for providing holistic and comprehensive prevention, care and treatment" to those affected by HIV and AIDS:

"It is not enough to preach from the pulpits of our religious communities. We have to be down on our knees, praying for strength to face the truth and then rise up and act positively.”

U.N. Officials Call on Countries To Strengthen HIV/AIDS Prevention Efforts Among Women. 06/07/07

Global HIV prevention programs that urge women to take a leading role must be increased to effectively combat the spread of the virus, U.N. officials said Thursday at the first International Women's Summit on Women's Leadership and HIV and AIDS in Nairobi, Kenya, Xinhua News Agency reports (Xinhua News Agency, 7/5).

The conference, organized by the World YWCA, is being attended by more than 1,500 AIDS advocates, celebrities, community health workers, global leaders and policymakers. The summit aims to address the impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls and will examine issues such as violence against women, poverty and children's rights, and access to resources. The summit is co-convened by the International Community of Women Living With HIV/AIDS and has support from UNAIDS' Global Coalition on Women and AIDS and the United Nations Population Fund (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 6/7).

Speaking at the conference, UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot said that HIV prevention efforts are not keeping pace with the gains being made in treating HIV-positive people. "We have made tremendous progress in recent years, but it is vital that leaders, and especially women, continue to prioritize AIDS -- not just now but over the long term," Piot said (Xinhua News Agency, 7/5). Piot called on donors and governments to increase investment in female-initiated HIV prevention programs, including access to female condoms and microbicide development. "We need to do better in terms of action that is relevant for women," Piot said (Wafula, Nation/AllAfrica.com, 7/6). He added, "As an optimist, I am a firm believer that catastrophes also offer opportunities. So let's turn the paradigm upside down and make sure that the response to AIDS leverages a fatal blow to the disempowerment of women" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 7/5).

Chan, Kenyan President Comments
In order to achieve universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support, "[w]omen must be in the driver's seat," World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan said at the conference. Chan said that gender inequality, intimate partner violence and poverty are among the factors fueling the HIV/AIDS pandemic (Xinhua/China Daily, 7/6). "We must ... seize every opportunity for women to learn their infection status," Chan said, adding, "Women can turn the tide on this epidemic. Women are best placed to make existing tools work" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 7/5).

Recent data shows that women comprise up to 48% of all HIV cases. In sub-Saharan Africa, 60% of all adults living with HIV/AIDS are women and among youths in the region, three out of four living with the disease are female, Xinhua News Agency reports. "These facts testify to the challenging reality that must be addressed," Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki said at the conference, adding, "They also remind us that much more work needs to be done in empowering women and girls to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS." Kibaki called on governments to address the challenges that downgrade women to a subordinate status and hinder their ability to fight HIV/AIDS (Xinhua News Agency, 7/5).

Women Condemn Stigma Over HIV. 05/07/07

Nairobi. Ms Gcebile Ndlovu, 45, a widowed mother of three, has lived with the virus that causes Aids the last 18 years.

Dressed in a nice suit, the motherly woman is full of confidence and one can hardly tell she has HIV.

But the 18 years have not been an easy road. She has faced stigma and discrimination in her community.

"When my in-laws found out that I was HIV-positive, they saw me in a different light. They discriminated against me and did not support me despite my condition. It took them a long time before they understood what was happening to me," Ndlovu says.

Ndlovu, a Swazi national who spoke at a press conference in Nairobi, said denial in churches was making it worse for people living with the virus.

Ndlovu, who is the Southern African Regional co-ordinator for women living with HIV/Aids is not alone.

Approximately 17.5 million women are living with HIV globally. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 60 per cent of people living with HIV are women.

Stigma and discrimination, gender inequalities, health care and treatment, sexual and reproductive rights, women's leadership and economic empowerment are some of the key issues the women addressed.

Ms Inviolata Mmbwavi, national co-ordinator of the National Empowerment Network of People Living with HIV/Aids in Kenya, has lived with the virus for 15 years. She is afraid for the country if the condom debate is stopped.

"It is an impediment to the HIV-positive persons who want to have sex. People have a right to protect themselves from HIV and sexually transmitted infections. It is their human right to use condoms," she said.

The women are attending an international women conference on HIV/Aids at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre.

Global Forum for Women With HIV. 05/07/07

NAIROBI, 5 July (PLUSNEWS) - AIDS does not only travel with truckers along African highways; it flies business class with men in dark suits, crawls into marriages and lurks in playgrounds. It smiles at you every day at work and, disproportionately, affects African women and girls because of gender inequalities.

With these words activist Deborah Williams, from Tobago, opened the one-day Forum for Women Living with HIV and AIDS in Nairobi, Kenya, on 4 July - the largest gathering ever of HIV-positive women from all corners of the world - convened by the International Community of Women Living with HIV and AIDS, and the World Young Women's Christian Association.

"For once, HIV-positive women are inside the tent, not outside," said Mary Robinson, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and a previous president of Ireland, in her keynote speech.

The main questions asked by the hundreds of HIV positive women at the forum were: if women matter, where is the leadership, and where is the money?

According to executive director of UNAIDS Peter Piot, an anticipated US$10 billion is being spent globally on AIDS this year, so the vexing questions were not about amounts, but "about accountability, where the money goes, and why is it so difficult for women and grassroots groups to access these resources?"

Sisonke Msimang, coordinator of HIV/AIDS programmes at the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, a Johannesburg-based philanthropic foundation, believes the time has come to underpin policies and declarations with resources.

"We know what the problem is. All over the world, good though scattered research, and good though small-scale projects point the way," she said. "The need now is for resources to scale up, to turn words into action."

Summing up the thinking, Canadian Dorien Taylor said: "We want seats at the table, more money and projects tailored to HIV-positive women."

New Frontiers for HIV

Twenty-five years into the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, a new generation of HIV-positive activists emerged at the forum: teenagers who have never lived in a world without AIDS, or in a body without the virus.

The circumstances of their lives may be vastly different from the previous generation of AIDS activists, but their experiences are not. Martha Judith Naigwe, 22, from Uganda, and Stephanie, a 15-year-old Australian, both grew up "in the cold, hushed world of AIDS", as Stephanie put it, denied a normal childhood because of discrimination.

Injecting drug users, who have even been stigmatised by other HIV-positive people, found an eloquent advocate in Irina Borushek, a Ukrainian economist who became a heroin addict, but quit the drug in 1996 and was diagnosed HIV positive in 1999.

Borushek told IRIN/PlusNews it had been easier to speak in public about being an HIV-infected woman than about being a former drug addict. "I was glad when the voices of HIV-positive women drug users were heard for the first time at the United Nations in 2005," she said. "They are triply stigmatised."

Through her leadership of the Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV, Borushek pushed her government to provide antiretroviral treatment to 4,000 people and methadone to 500 recovering addicts in 2006.

As is usual in meetings of HIV-positive women, stories were told and personal experiences shared. "Talking is a very important step for women who have been marginalised, discriminated against and silent," said Taylor.

As hundreds of women in turbans, boubous, kangas, ponchos and jeans sang and danced at the closing ceremony, their common experiences of living with HIV were much stronger than their differences.

The forum preceded the first International Summit of Women and AIDS, a conference from 5 to 7 July, in Nairobi, Kenya, to be attended by 1,800 participants from 95 countries.

Nairobi Hosts First Women's AIDS Conference. 04/07/07

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News(CBC)
04/07/2007

The world's first women's conference on AIDS opened in Kenya on Wednesday, with thousands of international delegates set to discuss how to fight rising HIV cases among women.

Key issues at the conference, which runs in Nairobi until July 10, will include feminization of the HIV pandemic, gender inequality, health care and treatment, sexual and reproductive rights, women's leadership and economic empowerment.

Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, and Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, will be two of the main speakers.

The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) conference has attracted over 2,000 participants from around the world, according to media reports from Nairobi.

"The fact that this conference is being held here in Africa is not without significance," said CBC Africa correspondent David McGuffin. "The vast majority of those infected with HIV and AIDS are here on this continent. This continent has the highest infection rate in the world. And most of those people on this continent that are infected are indeed women."

Because many Africans are subsistence farmers and most of those farmers are women, families are losing more than just their caregivers, McGuffin pointed out